Diary of an Arcade Employee

The Young Astronauts

I was not a big CBS Saturday Morning kind of guy, other than Muppet Babies and Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, but this comic book ad is tremendous, both for Hulk Hogan’s near-naked presence and for the touting of the new show The Young Astronauts. You probably don’t remember that show, because it never actually aired. Pushed to mid-season and scheduled to debut in early 1986, CBS pulled it in the wake of the Challenger shuttle explosion.

From the middle of nowhere in the Pacific Northwest, I contribute to the Retroist, write for trivia publications, and blog about music in a humorous fashion. I feel about "Back to the Future" the way you feel about "Star Wars." Also, I'm married and have a child (sorry ladies, orphans).

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7 thoughts on “The Young Astronauts”

plaidman76says:

Ah, one of the greatest, impossible to find rare Saturday morning cartoons. There must be some remains of this show out there….production cels, or even an almost complete episode or 2. There must have been some episodes finished an shelved? Right? I’d think if they were promoting it, they must have some eps ready to go. This is on my list of top 3 hard to find 80’s cartoons, along with Little Muppet Monsters and Wolf Rock TV. If anyone knows the whereabouts of episodes of any of these shows, please contact me!

I worked on The Young Astronauts for Marvel Productions. There were 13 episodes made. The fist episode actually did air on CBS on January 26, 1986 – 2 days before the Challenger exploded. CBS immediately pulled the show from its schedule. The show was created to promote NASA and to let kids know that becoming an astronaut was something that was a real possibility as a career choice. It was a bitter disappointment for those of us who worked on the program. We felt that the greatest tribute to those astronauts who lost their lives would have been to air the series. Alas, CBS had other ideas.

I have the set, about a group of young teens gathered together from all over the world to train as colonists to Mars. We focus on 6 of them, through their trials and tribulations as they learn to become a family/group as they compete with other groups to be selected as colonists. Then we follow them on the journey aboard the space ships, and then during the beginning days of colonization. A very well-written, fun, exciting, REALISTIC series which would make an awesome TV series.

I was a huge fan of saturday morning toonage growing up. I never heard of this show though (although I do remember watching the challenger launch & then explode, live, in school). Then again, I wasn’t much of a comic book person at the time (largely due to lack of finances for them), so I haven’t seen very many comic book ads for saturday toons.

I believe I have an animation cel from The Young Astronauts. This cel was with a stack of artwork from various Marvel shows animated by Toei and I’m pretty sure it’s from Young Astronauts. Here’s the link